Electronic devices in a computer system take many different forms. They may be circuit boards or data storages such as hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, DVD-ROM drives, and removable hard drives.
The electronic devices mentioned are often mounted in a housing structure that couples to a computer system. Often, they are mounted vertically or horizontally in a stacked manner. (See FIG. 1). In many computer systems, such as file servers, a carrier is typically used to support each of the particular electronic device that is inserted into the computer systems. For ease of transport and sharing of the electronic device from systems to system, the carrier is slidably insertable into and removable from the housing structure that couples to the computer system. A computer system may include circuit boards supported by carriers, several disk drives also supported by similar carriers, and a common interconnection board. In one embodiment, the computer system is a file server such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,912,799 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,944. In the file server, the carrier permits the insertion of at least one disk drive and at least one circuit board into the computer system's chassis.
Each of the carriers that support the disk drive or the circuit board is equipped with an ejector mechanism. The ejector mechanism facilitates the removal and insertion of the carrier from a housing structure. Typically, the ejector mechanism interacts with the housing structure to facilitate such removal and insertion of the carrier into the housing structure. Conventional ejector mechanisms are complicated for they require many complex parts working in conjunction to remove the carrier. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,790,497, 5,757,583, 5,319,519, and 6,247,944. Additionally, the conventional ejector mechanisms are bulky, cumbersome, and often, require a lot of force to eject or remove the carrier from the housing structure. Most disadvantagely, the conventional ejector mechanisms tend to create wobblings of the carrier, as the carrier is being inserted or ejected from the housing structure. Wobblings of the carrier causes damages to connector pins in the data storage device, the circuit board, and the common interconnection board.